There is a piece of History of Qi Ming in Tianjin Museum. What is the meaning of the mysterious words on it?

In the Tianjin Museum, there is a jade staff of Qi Ming, which is exquisitely shaped and engraved with several lines of inscriptions. After the experts cracked the inscription, they thought they could solve the mystery, but there was a bigger debate. What secret did the experts discover about this jade staff head? What are they arguing about?

Tianjin Museum, located near Hexi District, Tianjin, is a large-scale comprehensive art history museum dedicated to displaying ancient art in China and the development history of Tianjin. Tianjin Museum covers an area of about 64,003 square meters and has a collection of more than 200,000 treasures, including all kinds of gold and silver wares, bronzes, jade articles, ceramics and silk fabrics.

In the jade exhibition hall of Tianjin Museum, there is a jade named "Qi Xingming", which is an important cultural relic that tourists pay attention to. The "aerator" is 5.2 cm high and 3.4 cm in bottom diameter. It is emerald green with a slight variegated color. The whole vessel is a prism with 12 face, and its interior is hollow. The lower part of the body is connected with the hollow part, and the surface of the body is polished smoothly, so it is identified as the walking stick head. This cultural relic was collected by Li Mugong, a descendant of Li Hongzhang, in the old year, and then donated to Tianjin Museum for free.

On the body of this jade article, there are also seal characters, 12 faces, 3 characters on each face, and ***36 characters. In addition, there are 8 symbols with heavy characters. After cracking, the experts determined that the words on the jade article were "Qi, hidden, stored, stretched, lowered, lowered, lowered, lowered, lowered, lowered, lowered, lowered, lowered, lowered, lowered, lowered, lowered, lowered. It's a few days in the sky and a few days underground. Shun is life, and reverse is death. "

After deciphering the inscription on the head of the jade staff, experts determined that this inscription should be roughly divided into two sections. The first section is ten sentences, that is, the process of inhalation and exhalation. The so-called "deep storage, storage is delayed, delay is down, down is fixed" means that in the process of inhalation, clear air runs from top to bottom. The so-called "solid is sprouting, sprouting is long, long is retreating, retreating into the sky" means that turbid gas gradually rises from the lower abdomen to the top of the head, which is the process of exhalation.

"Fixed is solid" is the transition between inhalation and exhalation, which belongs to the mutual transformation stage between them. The next four sections talk about the key points in the process of breathing, which means that qi must be in place, such as "Inhale must reach the lower abdomen, exhale must reach the top of the head", and the last two sentences "Shun leads to life, reverse leads to death", which means that qi must be smooth, not reverse, otherwise there will be life worries. Therefore, experts believe that this paragraph is the secret of practicing Qigong.

However, once the above viewpoints were put forward, some opponents put forward different opinions. They believe that the explanation in the inscription should be a description of seasonal in-depth observation. According to the explanation of "Qi" in Shuo Wen Jie Zi, "Qi is also a cloud", which means that the "Qi" in the inscription is not the breath of human body, but a natural breath.

In addition, Shuowen Jiezi also records that "insects are born in the wind", so the inscription should be a metaphor for things. More specifically, it should be said that the inscription is a metaphor for nature with "insects"!

The eight sentences of "deep storage, storage, extension, extension, determination, determination, sprouting, long sprouting and long retreat" in this paper are about the eight processes in which the eggs are buried deep underground until everything recovers in the spring breeze, and the eggs gradually hatch into larvae, then pupate, and then break out of the pupa, which just corresponds to the "eight days of insect-killing" in Shuo Wen Jie Zi.

"Retreating into the sky" means that adults fly into the sky after breaking pupae and complete the whole incubation process. "The sky is above and the earth is below" refers to the activities of insects in hot and cold climates respectively. "Shun leads to life, and reverse leads to death" is the author's final summary of the laws of nature, which means that all living things should follow the arrangement of nature. Therefore, opposition experts believe that the inscription on the head of the jade festival staff is people's worship and praise for the spring recovery, and it also belongs to the head of the sacrificial staff in the spring sacrificial ceremony.

For the above two statements, the two schools of experts have their own opinions, and they are still arguing with each other, trying to put forward more powerful evidence to overthrow each other's views, but so far they have been arguing endlessly, regardless of right or wrong. In fact, in Bian Xiao's view, the debate between two expert schools is a good thing, because truth is constantly improved in the debate. The more heated the argument between the two factions, the closer it is to the truth.